"iBiquity lied"

[JasonW]

Even with a good crystal earphone, the sound of a crystal radio is remarkable.  I have a few reproductions of the original 1950s-era Hearever "Rocket Radios," each of which consists of nothing more than a slug-tuned coil, diode, fixed capacitor, resistor, and crystal earphone.

I'll never forget the first time I listened to one, picking up the Dr. Dean Edell show on a local station.  The musical intro, bumpers, and rejoinders (as well as the music in the commercials and all speech) sounded as crisp as FM audio, with the warmth and richness of AM audio.  The Rocket Radios sound as good as my Grundig S350 in wideband AM mode.

--  Jason

[autopaint-1]

But not exactly selective and it's still very susceptible to atmospherics. Anyone who's worked for an AM station which monitors their audio off the tower sampling loops knows that AM under ideal circumstances can sound terrific. That said, in the real world it rarely does. If you live in a rural location try a crystal radio with a marginal signal. Sure you hear the station but you also hear all the noise that surrounds the stations well.

[billybee]

Re: "royalties"...

Read the fine print autopaint 1 ...

The one-time license fee is for the MAIN CHANNEL.  Read the fine print in the Ibiquity contract regarding royalties on the secondary channels... unlike the main channel, they are annual amounts forever, based on revenues....

[billybee]

."We have one station in NYC, WPLJ running music on three channels currently. There are no digital artifacts apparent on any of the steams. This technology is in it's infacy and tweaking is constantly going on. I am going to record and will make a recording of the NY digital broadcasts and provide a file of the HD 2 & 3 channels for people to hear as soon as I have the time so that they can hear what is actually being broadcast, as opposed to what some neysayers say is on the air."

I'll stand by my earlier remarks.  If you don't hear digital artifacts, okay.  For the sake of the future of commercial FM broadcasting, I only hope that most people's ears are no better than yours.  But I fear that is not the case.

[JasonW]

But not exactly selective and it's still very susceptible to atmospherics. Anyone who's worked for an AM station which monitors their audio off the tower sampling loops knows that AM under ideal circumstances can sound terrific. That said, in the real world it rarely does. If you live in a rural location try a crystal radio with a marginal signal. Sure you hear the station but you also hear all the noise that surrounds the stations well.

Agreed for the Rocket Radios, although more advanced crystal set designs with more components that provide filtration are amazingly selective.  When I lived in Miami, my very basic Radio Shack Tandy "breadboard" crystal radio kit (AM radio ferrite loopstick, 160 pF variable capacitor, 1N34 diode, and crystal earphone) did have trouble separating stations; I had to slide the coil on the ferrite rod as well as tweak the variable capacitor to zero-in on a desired station.

Here in Fairbanks, Alaska where we have only 5 well-spaced AM stations, it would probably have no more difficulty separating the stations than the Rocket Radios.  But this is a special place, "RF-wise."  It's so electrically quiet here that even the Long Wave band is comparatively noise-free.  --  Jason   

[autopaint]

"I'll stand by my earlier remarks.  If you don't hear digital artifacts, okay.  For the sake of the future of commercial FM broadcasting, I only hope that most people's ears are no better than yours.  But I fear that is not the case."

Everyone who has talked with me about their IBOC experiences has told me that it sounds much better than either sat broadcaster. By the way, I am a profesional broadcast audio engineer and I'd gladly match my "ears" againts yours any day. On the BA HD Receptor the audio quality on the NYC HD 1, 2 &3 channels sounds great, with no obvious aritacts. I listen to WNYC's HD2 channel every night. It's a classical formated station and it sounds fabulous on that radio. I've stated that some artifacts can be heard on AM HD stations especially when the radio has to do large amounts of error correction due to interference. I'd suggest you take another look. Check out how many people get their music from IPODS using the provided ear bud headphones. I think you are overestimating people.

[rbrucecarter5]

Annnnd once again your ignorance of the HD system shines!  There is a setting on AM HD to go either 5 or 8 kHz for analog.   Anyways what radio would be able to actually give you the 8kHz audio?

Duh - virtually any cheap radio manufactured in the last 5 years - they all have single IF ceramic filters as wide as a barn door!  My daughter had one with +/- 40 kHz bandwidth.  Not because anybody cared about "high fidelity" - but because they implemented it as cheaply as possible.  By the way - it self jams on IBOC stations.  That one inch speaker in that radio puts out digital trash above 10 kHz perfectly well, and since she is 11 she can still hear the 10 to 15 kHz digital sideband AND doesn't listen to Radio Disney on that radio BECAUSE of what she calls "screeching".

Great business plan - Radio Disney - go with IBOC when the vast majority of your audience is listening on $5 radios that WILL self jam, and your listeners have hearing attuned to IBOC sidebands.  If you ask me, 15 kHz mono would have been a really good choice for that network.

Oh, and by the way, I think I am documenting AM coverage issues with IBOC stations.  Signals are considerably weaker than they used to be at my remote listening site.